Andy Briggs hired to prepare Friends Provident float

Clive Cowdery's Resolution group is bringing in a hatchet man as it seeks to shape up friends Provident for a return to the public markets.

Trevor Matthews, the amiable Australian who is chief executive of pensions group Friends Provident, is being replaced by Andy Briggs, who will join from Lloyds Banking Group.

Briggs is the first senior departure since new Lloyds chief Antonio Horta-Osorio joined the bank last week - though the timing was just a coincidence with Briggs saying he couldn't resist this 'exciting opportunity'.

Matthews will become vice chairman of friends - in an amicable deal
that was likely to have been smoothed with a multi-million pound cash
and share award. He will look for new roles in his native Australia.

The decision to bring in Briggs comes after Resolution bought Axa's
UK pension business last autumn. Cowdery, who set up Resolution as a
shell company to buy life insurers, wants Briggs to crunch together the
Axa business with friends Provident and take the axe to costs.

Briggs, who has a long background in pensions, has recently been
integrating the Lloyds' and Halifax general-insurance businesses after
the two banks merged.

Shares in Resolution (up 7.7p to 253p) have fallen more than 20pc
over the last year amid disappointment that the group took longer than
some had expected to identify targets for acquisition.

Cowdery has won respect for hunting out bargains, but his reputation
for doing deals on the cheap means that potential targets are wising up.

Resolution's chief executive John Tiner said there 'may or may not' be another acquisition in 2011.

Either way, Resolution doesn't want to be left holding the friends and the Axa businesses over the long term.